In the Summer of 2008/2009we will be closed for counter and telephone salesfrom WEDNESDAY 23 December and reopening Monday 1st February 2010.During the break orders placed by mail, email or fax will be processed regularly during the holiday period.To ensure supplies for the holiday period please place your orders by
FRIDAY the 18th December if pre Christmas delivery is required.
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Dear Friends, What! Another year has rushed by! I must be getting old. I remember when I was much younger, Christmas meant holidays, 3 long, long weeks camping at the beach. Those lazy summer days of entertaining ones self seemed to last for such a long time. Back then there was no portable music, no cameras and phones, no computers and games, no responsibilities, just the sea, sand, books and ones own thoughts. Jump ahead a few years, (just a few), we started this year with the Global Financial Crisis, and lots of doom and gloom in the financial world. As usual I headed to the USA to the Atlanta Poultry Expo, via Chicago and New York. Lots more doom and gloom. America is very frozen of course, and arrived back in Australia to the heat and bushfires. They missed us at home by half a kilometre, and about the same in Narre Warren. Thanks to all those who called and were concerned. But we were fortunate, the second time we have had them go around us. Others were not so lucky. Business was planned to be slow, due to the GFC, so we proceeded to develop some new projects, we thought we would have time to implement. But somehow, the word slow missed you, our customers, and the business went ballistic. It has never been so busy as this year. Then in the middle of the year we ran into problems with production of the Bellsouth 100. We not only changed the manufacturer of our electronics, but also a batch of 1000 thermostats arrived which would not operate at all due to some change in the microchip from the manufacturer. Right about now a splinter in my right middle finger put me in hospital for a week, being pumped full of antibiotics to stop the infection, and pain killers to stop the pain. I think I was high for the whole week. The threatened amputation of the finger did not occur. (imagine that a Finger missing a finger, without a finger in every pie, yet more jokes). But once back at the office, there was mad panic to retool and get production running. We had no B100 incubators for some months. I thank all those who waited while the new stock was produced. Then Autoelex, the manufacturers of R-Com Digital incubators offers a discount package to bolster sales in what had been for them a tough international market, with manufacturers deals on all sorts of products flooding our shores. After all, Aussie was the only economy in the Western world not in recession. So a sale of the Rcom Range at 30% off , kept us running, at the same time, I was running the usual Royal show circuit, visiting most of the Royal Shows. Needless to say the new projects are still new projects half completed, and we here are hanging out for the holidays. I have decided not to visit the Atlanta Poultry Expo in January, both Jenny and I are just plain tired, and in need of the sand, sea, books, and our own thoughts. Then to cap it off last week, the most welcome rain came with such vengeance, so that the factory was flooded. Another mad panic to keep the water out of the library, in the end the only real damage was a lot of wet nuts and bolts as the rain ran into the tool and bolt store, and a collection of Poultry newspapers from 1940 onwards that was damaged. This made me think a lot this week of the fragility of a lot of what we value. It seems a busy year has been bookended by nature, fires at one end, floods at the other, and a trip to hospital in the middle. The Good Book says " Don't store up treasures on earth where fires can burn it up, or floods can wash it away, or thieves can steal it, or doctors cut it off. Instead look to treasures in heaven" ( my modern translation). And I think again of Christmas, the celebration of events long ago, of the promised baby Jesus, who when he grew up, told of the treasures of heaven, and who challenged the priorities of the people of his day. I am still challenged by His words today, to say no to things which are of little value, to spend time on that which has long term significance. Thanks for your custom through the year, for your kind patience when we have needed it, for your concern for us when we were under threat. May the holiday season allow you to spend some time in your equivalent of the sand, sea, books, and your own thoughts.
My best wishes to you and yours,
Jim and Jenny Finger. | |
BELLSOUTH 1980-2010 | |
THE NEW SURO from R-Com20 egg capacity, Auto turn, Digital Temperature, External Humidity Pump Retail Price 399.00. Our special until close of business on 23 December 2009, $325.00 inc GST plus freight.(unless sold out prior) | Click here
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| NEW RANGE OF BOOKS, CLASSIC REPRINTS From the press of Ian Selby in New Zealand comes this list of Classic reprints. Quality reproductions by the top breeders of all time in these breeds. These are works from the era of the poultry boom,when pure breeds were commercial breeds. Useful information on the breeds characteristics, origins, and how to breed high quality of the breeds. Most of the reprints are of works now listed as rare, and not likely to be available for general reading. |
| NEW RANGE OF POULTRY CARDS Ideal stocking stuffers, these sets of cards are reprints of the wide range of delightful artwork from the time when all photography was black and white and colour was the realm of the artist. |
| VACCINATORS. Vaccines are hot property at the moment, with the lack of Mareks Vaccine causing much discussion, and the hot spell followed by rain causing a flush of mosquitoes follwed by the outbreaks of Fowl Pox We have been for sometime suppliers of Necmad products to the commercial world, though the pure breed and small scale industry tend to follow later. The necmad range has a couple of unique products and some pretty handy tools for application of vaccines. Its worth some time followi ng up the articles by Grant Richards in Australasian Poultry. They will assist in clear thinking about requirements./td> |
| HOT WEATHER CONTROL OF RED MITE. We have had a lot of calls about parasites in the last few weeks, bought on by the burst of hot weather. Now is the time to review strategies to cope with the fast reproduction of parasites, particularly lice and red mite, which occurs in the heat. At the same time we have had another of the historical remedies for external parasites removed from the poultry lists, making it all the harder to effectively treat for these bugs. Many people have turned to the pour on systemic medications, which are specifically advised by the registration authorities as not to be used with poultry, due to the dangerous residues in meat and eggs. Indeed we have reports of widespread infertility with their use with breeding flocks. So that choice is a poor one also. At the same time we have a number of reports as to the effectiveness of these mechanical treatments for specifically red mite, baut also with some effect against the nymph stages of other external parasites, and also excellent reports on the condition of birds fed Molodri for the reduction of worm and coccidiosis eggs in the environment. Though neither are "treatments" but preventatives. Molodri has been used for many years as a conditioner in horses and sheep, and seems to have a similar beneficial effect on poultry. Safe and easy to use products. New technical material posted to aid the understanding of their use. Follow the title link. |
A NEW BOOKS AND A SPECIAL A guide to British Fancy Pigeon and Poultry Magazines, Prints and Postcards By David Scrivener A new work for collectors of these items. Lavishly illustrated, interesting reading and a useful reference of dates artists, and series. Produced in collaboration with Selby Print in NZ. $45.00 inc GST plus post  Also from David Scrivener, the hard back Rare Poultry Breeds, an interesting history of breeds from around the world. This book is an excellent quality hardback, but like many books from England, it is a litle too expensive at $88.00. I have procured a limited stock, with support from the publisher and the better exchange rate for $50.00 inc GST plus post. While stocks last.  |
NEW INCUBATORS FOR 2010 I commenced this project several years ago when the indications were that light globes would dissapear as a heating source for incubators. The beauty of light globes is that they are easy to control, the draw back is they do not like the switching on and off, and so are unreliable. In recent years, they seem to have become less reliable, perhaps because there is less choice of suppliers. So on one of my trips to the commercial industry expos I located a new Fibreglass sheet ideal for our applications, easy to clean, insulated, lightweight, and corrosiion resistant. I proceeded to have special joiner sections made for cabinet production, and source the right other quality components. This year was supposed to be a quiet year, and this was the major new manufacturing project, a new Australian Made incubator for larger sizes. Alas, rather than the wide field trials completed by July, and full production soon after, we have just released the units for the wider field trials. So 2010 is to be the year of the full release of the new range. |
| WEIGHING POULTRY So do we need to weight poultry? Now thats a complex question, but one which is taken seriously by many breeders and producers. It is interesting that all the exhibition standards specify a weight range for every breed, and I often hear much discussion at shows about bird sizes and weights. Birds winning prizes which are too big or too small. An interesting side note. When we started the business 30 years ago, our first leg ring orders were for size 6 and size 9 rings. Most bantams used size 6 rings about 6mm inside diameter and most layer birds used a size 9 about 14mm inside diameter. Today we rarely sell size 6 even for modern bantams, and some breeds of bantams use size 9 which was used for standatd light breeds. Light breeds today use size 11, 12 and I have Australorp customers using size 14. So the weights of birds has gone up significantly in recent times. But the question has also to do with production, uniformity and breeding. In the commercial world uniformity is very important, as a flock all the same is easier to manage. It is a world of equals, no runts, no bullies. But of most significance is the rate of growth. It is an interesting fact that ideal growth rates exist for each different genetic type of bird. If the growth rate is too fast, too slow, or changes dramatically, it has a long term effect on the life and production of the bird. In the growth of a layer or breeder commercial flock, birds are weighed regularly (usually only a representative sample of the flock) and the weights plotted on a graph to compare it with the breed or genetic standard. From that determination can be made about the diet and changes to match the actual growth of the bird. The difficulty with pure breeds is there is little or no information about the ideals and even the actual growth rates of the breeds. At the World Poultry Congress in Brisbane last year, the Pure breeds Seminar led by Aziz Sacrani was titled Digestive Health. Aziz spent time showing us just how important the weight gains are to the productive life of the bird. A rapid gain of weight is detrimental but can be managed, however if the birds loose weight at any time in the growth cycle, then their ability to lay eggs is permanantly damaged, and the breeding capacity of the male permanently shortened. So for a commercial farmer, free range or organic farmer who needs to watch the dollars, weight graphs of the new flocks are vital to the future health and well being of the pocket book as well as the birds. Such effects are less obvious in pure breed flocks, but in my opinion, some of the loss of quality of breeders is the lack of objective measurements of actual, rather than observed growth rates. By the way, one of the old time growth myths was, "never feed the chick for 48 hours to make sure it uses up the yolk sac." Recent research has confirmed that the yolk sac food is essential to develop the digestive tract and what occurs in the first 4-5 days is essential to the long term health of the bird. It takes 3 days for the digestive system to get to the stage of proper absorbtion of enough nutrient to allow the growth to occur from digested food. Aziz suggested that current research showed a link btween the weight of the digestive tract at day 4 and the end weight of the digestive tract as a mature animal. If the food is restricted until the yolk sac is already gone, then the bird will starve for as long as it takes for the digestive system to get going. Restrict the feed in the first few days, and you permanently limit its digestive capacity for life. So a breed program can derive value from weight measurements and development of graphs. I hva included a reference to Isa brown growth data so you can see the sort of growth data collected and the way it can be presented as a growth chart. It is a PDF file Click here. The sort of scales used commercially are a bit expensive for a hobby application, but we do sell them for commercial operations.Most hanging type scales will do the job for small numbers. For commercial scales Click here |
| NESTS FEATURED ON BETTER HOMES AND GARDENS Doctor Harry Cooper demonstrated fixing up an egg eating problem by rearranging the poultry house and including our Rollaway nests. We are delighted to see these nests get the recognition, but with 2 days of the show we were sold out. New stock should be available in a week or so when the new container arrives. |
DO YOU WANT TO PRINT YOUR LOGO ON YOUR EGGS? For the free range and organic farmer For many years I have been an advocate of egg stamping as a way to develop the business of small farmers. Egg stamping accomplishes two things; Firstly, it allows the development of an identity for the product of a small producer, a way of making your product identifiable with your business. Its a way of adding a value to your ideals and showing these are different from the larger players Secondly, it kills the egg substitution racket, that is your eggs being confused with someone selling generic eggs in your used cartons ( which is itself not legal). Lastly, it gives the customer confidence in the issue of traceability. You stand by your product becasue it is clearly identified. The requirement is spreading across the country so that eventually we will return to the idea that all eggs sold must be identified. In the old machines eggs were stamped using a special purple die ( made by Bellsouth). That method fell out of fashion as the legal requirement for egg stanmping declined. But another thing was the old method was a bit messy, needed a fair amount of maintenance, and was inflexible if you wanted to change the image. The new generation of egg marking has been injet printers. These are great, but our experience has been that they are very capital intensive, $10-20,000.00 placing them out of the reach of small users. These systems were not well suited to small graders. We are pleased to say we have been trialling a single head printer which can place dates, type, logos, barcodes, on eggs in a single line for under $2000.00 I dont have full documentation prepared yet, but we are pleased with the live trials, and expect to have these with full information in 2010 Call Jim if this is of interest. |